Critical communications software company Everbridge has made a $33.6 million cash bid to acquire Norwegian competitor Unified Messaging Systems (UMS) in a deal that would grow its overseas presence.
Burlington, MA-based Everbridge (NASDAQ: [[ticker:EVBG]]) said its purchase offer represents a nearly 45 percent premium to UMS’s closing share price on Tuesday. UMS is based in Oslo, Norway, and trades on the Oslo Axess stock exchange. The proposed acquisition hasn’t closed, and it’s not guaranteed to go through. UMS’s board members could withdraw their recommendation to accept the offer if a better deal is proposed by another suitor, and Everbridge doesn’t match it, according to a press release.
Both companies sell software that enables governments, businesses, and other organizations to quickly send messages to large groups of people, such as during emergencies like severe weather, active shooter situations, and IT outages. Twenty-year-old UMS has more than 1,200 customers worldwide. Part of the attraction for Everbridge is UMS’s technology that enables the sending of alerts to mobile devices, CEO Jaime Ellertson said in a prepared statement.
“The company will provide a new way for Everbridge to help keep people safe while also expanding our international footprint,” Ellertson wrote in the statement.
If the UMS deal closes, it would mark at least the third acquisition by Everbridge since January 2017. In that time, the company has also acquired Sweden-based Svensk Krisledning and Lansing, MI-based IDV Solutions.
[In the above photo, Everbridge employees ring the opening bell of the Nasdaq stock exchange on Sept. 16, 2016, the day the company’s stock began trading publicly. Photo courtesy of Nasdaq.]
